Proud to be 74 - 79 BITSian Sanjay Dharwadkar shines with Fast - paced crime thriller Novel Diamond in My Palm

Diamonds have fascinated humans for thousands of years as they are a symbol of wealth, strength, purity, and everlasting love. Gifting diamond jewellery on Valentine's Day conveys that your bond is as enduring as the gem itself. Commonality of all human beings, in all places, in all times, Storytelling is among the oldest forms of communication. Not everyone is blessed with the art of storytelling but Sanjay Dharwadkar alumnus of BITS Pilani 1974 - 1979) MSc (Hons) Mathematics is an exception.

Sanjay had extensively worked for India's technology missions in the 1990s, a seminal development initiative in safe drinking water in rural India and country-wide immunization operations. Later he moved to specialize in solutions for identity & identification as applied to national populations. His expertise helped the government of India to pledge some of the first electronic identification programs in the public domain such as driving licenses on smart cards, culminating later in the world's largest modern national identification program - Aadhaar.

During his decade-long stay in Johannesburg, he travelled across the African continent, and continued to write on the role of identification technologies in development. In 2014, he moved to Utrecht in the Netherlands, where he has been working closely with governments and the United Nations on identity law, policy and practices. He is also among the original members of The Hague Colloquium on the Future of Legal Identity that last met in 2019 at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Given his wanderlust, he travels extensively with his partner, Priscilla Anne, listens to Jazz, and relishes a game of Bridge. He takes his inspiration from American author, journalist, and opinion columnist Anna Quindlen who said, "Books are the plane, and the train, and the road, they are the destination, and the journey, they are home." Crafted over several years, Diamond in My Palm, is as much a literary novel as a tight-knit, fast-paced crime thriller.

Its vivid, animated characters inhabit the richly evoked social worlds of global cities, from Johannesburg, Antwerp, New York to Hyderabad, Mumbai & Delhi. Within its fictional framework - the very first time an astounding trail of the world's twelve premier sparkling rocks is fully unraveled - that motivates its protagonists, intensifies its action, triggers the murders and solves the manifold mystery in the climactic finale. An enduring story that transposes mythology into history, and history into fiction, as also how our world transmutes its political shades & hues.

The plot begins at a Middle Eastern international airport where a Gandhian scholar from Hyderabad and a mining engineer from Johannesburg meet fortuitously in transit, and romance brews. Their love unfolds in musings and enticing historic narrations of twelve most celebrated diamonds in the world such as the Hope, the Orlov, the Shah, the Regent, the Dresden & the Koh-i-Noor among others that were once whisked away from India which changed the destinies of emperors & empires and today the proud possession of nations around the world.

By a strange stroke of destiny, their lives get entangled with the journey of three younger entrepreneurs & fortune-seekers - a wily diamond trader from Lucknow, a vivacious former clerk at Anglo-Dutch and an ambitious business woman of African political pedigree, once a student in Moscow. An Indian trader dies in what is claimed to be a carjacking incident. A South African woman apparently jumps to her death from the sixth-floor hotel room. And an eminent Brahmin scholar, 'a guardian of ancient esoteric secrets' is crushed under the weight of 'five thousand years of learning', when a giant, iron-cast bookcase topples on him.

Is this tragic termination of lives mere mischance or premeditated & entwined? Are these fitful crimes of passion, eruptions of violence in the immensely enigmatic & lucrative diamond business, or part of a much more sinister web of desire, deceit, power & retribution in the timeless trajectory of the world's most magnificent precious stones? Nonetheless, the plot & the subplots converge in a spectacular nail-biting finish. The book ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9382035305 is published by Stellar Publishers New Delhi.

Sanjay also had authored the much-acclaimed book on management, Corporate Humor: Chipping Away the Blues, in 1998, and has already embarked on a second novel, The Philosopher's Mistress, that maps the journeys of René Descartes. He is presently Sr. Digital Identity Officer, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Prof BR Natarajan
BITS Pilani Alumnus
C/o Jamuna Mishra Academy - JMA
Pilani, Rajasthan India 333031
Phone: +91-9799476406
Email: brnatarajan@bitsaa.org
Website: https://www.bitsaa.org

About BITSAA: BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA) has emerged as one of the strongest alumni networks of any university. BITSAA International engages in charitable and educational activities by raising funds for setting up endowments, creating scholarships, rewarding teaching - research and generally promoting the development of resources at Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani, Dubai, Goa & Hyderabad campuses. BITSAA International also aims to strengthen the ties, friendship and communication amongst former students, alumni faculty and friends of the Institute. BITSAA International provides a number of channels for people to stay connected with each other and with Birla Institute of Technology & Science. Notable other alumni initiatives for BITS Pilani include Prof SSR Memorial Teaching Excellence Award, Atma Nirbara multi crore Pilani Resource Centre by 75-80 batch alumni, Prashant Anuradha Palakurthi Research Endowment and many more.
For more on BITSAA see https://www.bitsaa.or

This release was published on openPR.